I have a 1996 silver penny how can I tell if it's been dipped in acid or if it's worth something?

Question

My daughter found a 1996 silver penny. If I hadn't looked at it closely, I would have sworn it was a dime. How can I tell if this penny had been dipped in acid to make it appear silver, or if it was a penny that was accidentally not copper plated during minting?

Answer 1

Put it on your tongue, hold it there for a couple of minutes, and if you get trippy and start seeing weird colors, then it's been dipped in acid.

Answer 2

The blanks are cut from a strip of copper coated zinc, then then go through a machine that makes the rims ( that makes what is  now called a planchet, then put in to large bins, then taken to the coin presses. Since the planchets are not a clad system like quarters not being coated would show up right away and that strip of metal would be taken out of the machine before the blanks were even cut out. The coin you have gas been plated or dipped into an acid. Another cute trick is putting a peny of a wood stove for the copper will melt off the coin before the zinc will melt. This makes the coin a gray silver color due to the zinc was heated hope this helps. There are also no reports of such a coin in the numismatic press. The press does not report on damage coins.